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Are you... Selling a ship? Buying a boat? A massive ferry built to hold nearly 2,000 passengers capsized in the central Philippines on Saturday June 21, 2008 during Typhoon Fengshen. Seeking a seaman? The 23,824GT ‘Princess of the Stars’ flipped during storms, carrying a total of 864. The manifest of vessel operator Sulpicio Lines listed 725 passengers, 112 crewmembers and 27 others, including security escorts, canteen personnel and sea marshals. More than 800 are assumed dead. Wanting a winch? ‘Princess of the Stars’ began its journey from Manila to Cebu around 8pm on Saturday night, June 21, when the typhoon was a Category One storm, with winds up to 152km/h. Some survivors of the tragedy eventually washed up on nearby shores over the following couple of days. Speaking from his hospital bed, survivor Reynato Lanorio, a crewmember on board the ferry, said that while many passengers managed to get on lifeboats, he did not know whether they survived. He said that the captain gave orders to abandon ship shortly after it listed. Trading a tanker? Coast Guard officials said that the ship’s captain had been ordered to seek shelter from the storm in inland waters off the Sibuyan islands, but that the vessel’s engines failed, and it ran aground during the storm. “It seemed like everything happened in 15 minutes. Next thing we knew, the ship had gone under,” Mr Lanorio told the UK’s Telegraph newspaper. Ogling an opportunity? Filipino Coast Guard rescuers reached the scene of the disaster on the evening of Sunday June 22, and hammered on the overturned hull of the ‘Princess of the Stars’, hoping to hear a response. But rescue attempts were hampered by high seas and stormy weather. By Tuesday June 24, divers and rescue teams managed to reach the 181-metre vessel. If so, you should try advertising on www.baird-online.com for fastest results at the lowest cost BAIRD ONLINE 8 August 2008 SHIPS AND SHIPPING Coastguard Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo said that about 20 coast guard and navy divers were at the scene, and that the US Navy ship ‘Stockham’ arrived with divers and search and rescue helicopters. Divers wriggled into the ferry through broken windows but only found bodies, three days after the vessel’s capsize. “Most of the bodies were floating inside. They were trapped when the seven-deck ship suddenly tilted and capsized,” Philippine Navy spokesman Lt-Col Edgard Arevalo told dzBB radio. Lt-Col Arevalo said that while it was possible that some passengers could have survived initially, the bad weather that delayed rescue crew would have caused more to perish due to suffocation. “[With life vests], you will survive for a few hours,” Lt-Col Arevalo said, “but in time, the air will run out.” Only one compartment was entered during the search and rescue mission at first. “It’s difficult to open all compartments because they also have to think of the safety of the divers,” Lt-Col Arevalo said at the time. As the likelihood of finding survivors diminished, he said that the priority had shifted, and the focus was to extricate the bodies. Ferry operator Sulipicio has said that the family of each person killed will receive 200,000 pesos (US$4,600) in compensation. The last available official death toll stood at about 70 people, but with only about 36 survivors, the death toll exceeds 800. NEWS – ASIA Ferry disaster in the Philippines